For the first time I am really checking into my drafts. Based on what my ratings are for HS/Col/ADV for any one world, I want to know what I can expect to see - how many top prospects are showing on my draft board, how accurate their pre-draft ratings are, and then how they compare to the ADV results after.

From what we have been told, this is what we know about scouting budgets -

• A $20 million College, HS, or Advanced budget will - NOT - give you absolutely perfect results.
• For College/HS, you are NOT seeing - exactly - what a player's potential ratings are. You are also NOT seeing every single player.
• For Advanced, you are NOT seeing the exact projected ratings of a player.

In Clemente I have 20 College, 0 HS, and 20 Adv. So I am all in on college and pretty much ignoring HS. So based on the above, I expected that -

• I would see most, but not all top college prospects pre-draft.
• I would - not - expect to see any HS players.
• Of the College players I did see, their predraft ratings vs the Advanced ratings I saw after those players were signed would be close - but not - exact.

I'm still looking through things, but here are some early observances:

• My $20 million college-only scouting budget gave me 500 players. I'm a little surprised. In other worlds where I have a HS or College only budget, sometimes I get less than 500.
• 6 of those 500 players were HS players even though my budget was 0 for HS.
• Of all 500 players I saw, only 3 of those players were - not - drafted. They were trash anyway.
• Of the 123 players my $20 million college-only budget showed me that were drafted in the first 5 rounds, I missed 17 college players. In other words those 17 college players weren't on my pre-draft list. And yes, some of those players were pretty good. 3 are probably All-Stars.

This was my 1st pick (12th overall). He was ranked 6th on the HBD board and I slotted him second. These are his pre-draft ratings based on the $20 million college only budget -

This is his post-staff ratings based on $20 million Advanced -

Seems like a win here! Durability, endurance, splits, and some pitches improved over pre-draft.

Then I look at my next pick - 1st round supplemental, 47th overall -

Looks like a potential back of rotation starter or long reliever. Not enamored by the pitches.

This is his post-draft advanced -

Ugh. Got the exact opposite of Molitor here. The player appears to be worse than I thought. Durability and Endurance went down. The somewhat usable splits - particularly that 76 vR split, dropped almost 10 points each. There were some minimal gains on pitches. I can't yet see what I missed out on because everyone hasn't signed their players, but what I can see isn't much better.

To me this is where the draft is critical. If you draft a top 20-25 player, generally they are not going to go from BLer to AAAA or AAA - as long as you pay attention to your draft and budget well. Here, on a fringe pick (in my experience, supplemental can yield anything from a BLer to a AAA guy), you want to nail it and get a useful BLer. Here, it appears that even doing my Excel diligence and carefully ranking my player based on the best ratings you buy, my pick went from BLer pre-draft to AAA post-draft. Pretty disappointing. But that is the essence of 'fuzzy ratings'.

If I come up with anything else I'll post it.

Without reading any of this....Waaaahhh?

ALLOW ME. Coppolecchia.

In post 1 you already said 20 mil College scouting does NOT tell you perfect projections. You already said 20 mil Advanced scouting does NOT tell you perfect projections.

His pre draft projections show splits of 68-76 which you deem "potential". Post draft shows 60/66 which you deem "ugh."

The player could end up ANYWHERE between those numbers, some of which you might deem potential and some which you might deem ugh? Or maybe none at all, if he gets injured in the wrong way.

You are basing disappointment on a semi-imaginary number of 76 which you already told us was not precise anyway.

What happens if Molitor ends up at 76 vsR? Nothing says it'll happen, but it could anyway.

Projections. Have. Always. Been. Fuzzy.

IMO all the projections are meant to tell you is where the players rank in relation to each other. There are 31 other teams drafting too. You have NO idea who you're getting with the 47th pick.

Regardless of 20 mil in draft, to me, pre-ranking is everything. Nothing you can plug into the draft settings is going to give you a perfect rundown order of prospects just the way you like them. Regardless of 20 mil scouting, it's up to the drafting owner to pre-rank players. To me, pre-ranking is the critical step.

Oh and one more thing, if Molitor gets to his Advanced projections, you got straight lucky because his College projection doesn't look at all to me like a #2 player overall. I'd have been disappointed in the draft class if I'd have had to put him at #2. If he gets to the Advanced numbers, he should be a steal at the 12.

But no one talks about those players.

I have no idea why people think their $20M ADV projections are any good. They are now, and have always been, very fuzzy. The fact that COL and HS are now worse does not make ADV better than it was.

Based on age and current ratings, and nothing else, my guess is that:
Molitor will be an SP3, albeit one that can pitch a ton of innings. In Jackson, in the AL, he'll run ERAs in the low 4s. His VsR and control will fall noticeably short of BOTH projections.
Coppolecchia will be a very marginal major leaguer, only viable because of his very high stamina (low ingame fatigue). In Jackson, in the AL, in an LRB/mopup/spot starter role, he'll run ERAs in the high 4s. His ADVs will be pretty close to target but he'll fall well short of his control projection.

Get back to us in a real-world year on this.

I hope you colleagues in Clemente are thanking you for sharing the projected ratings for your draft picks with the world.

Damag - agreed. I'm not harping against fuzzy ratings. I'm just pointing out I hoped my 47th overall would possibly reach those college projections rather that what advanced appears to say - which indicates he won't come near them. I'm not complaining about the system. Just trying to understand it and share the information.

As as for drafting Molitor at #2 overall, why would I be worried about that? I'll never be drafting #2 overall. But I see your point.

Posted by tecwrg on 5/14/2016 9:25:00 PM (view original):
I hope you colleagues in Clemente are thanking you for sharing the projected ratings for your draft picks with the world.

I'm a sub .500 team in a division with two of the best teams in Clemente. 18 games behind through 42 games. You think anyone's paying attention? If they get any huge advantage from knowing the projected ratings and my budgets, more power too them.

I have so many issues with this new ratings system. But the biggest is NOT seeing the current ratings of the players we draft. That's just flat out stupid. Many of us have developed reasonably accurate methods for predicting development and growth based upon current projections that do not require us to reply upon projected ratings. In my experience, my own projections have been far more accurate than the "scouting" projections. But the rate of mistakes in the scouting (the difference between what we see on the scouting reports and what we see once a player is drafted) is simply too wide if you spend a reasonable sum on your scouting. Some suggestions to improve this train wreck might be:
1. At the upper end of scouting (no matter the area, HS, COL, INT or ADV), the accuracy and VOLUME of players found should be nearly spot on. It shouldn't be perfect, but should be pretty good.
2. Maybe ADD an international academy to the game (and budget for it) to improve the international scouting.
3. Also - on the upper end of scouting, teams should find a few "hidden gems" in the later rounds. One thing I think it's easy to forget, is that the raw talent in baseball is only a part of the success equation in getting players to the ML. The development progression, coaching and training matter - a lot. It would be nice to understand better the actual connections between those budgets and player development. Right now - it's frankly hard to see. Or, make the improvement in development spike when players are "trained" at higher levels or get higher levels of minor league coaching relative to their peers.
4. I think most of us are okay with some level of fuzziness in the projected ratings, but tightening it up, providing some budgetary controls for the owners to reduce the fuzziness would help immensely.

The current situation - really - significantly reduces any motivation to draft and scout at all. Just save budget dollars and buy FA to build your team. Current ratings - you can count on them, and you know what you are buying. With the time, energy and massive costs now associated with player development, I really see little no no value in spending anything at all on scouting. And I think that is exactly the opposite of the intention of the change in the ratings. It was to encourage teams to scout. But with the information being so flawed, why? I'd rather bank on sure things. Just shoot craps in the draft and not worry about it.

What was really flat-out stupid was telling new owners that they needed to spend heavily on ADV to project development while veteran owners were getting the same knowledge for free.

As more people decide to punt the draft, more people will benefit from the draft. Less competition, better results.

I, for one, have no problem with the way things are currently. I've missed on a few but, by and large, I'm still getting quality from the draft. Sometimes, my 2nd rounder is better than my supplemental pick but, really, isn't that what we asked for?

I would love it if the other 31 owners in my worlds decided to punt the draft.

Molitor is going to gain 24 points VsR at 22 years old? I still feel like those advance numbers are off. Will be interesting to see what his progression is.

In Riley I have $20 million in HS. I think someone hit the nail on the head when they said $20 million will get you 80% correct projections. In 2 years I have just picked a guy in the first round from the other 20%. Oh well.